Balls

An entire hoard of children&# 39;s toys found at Market Harborough parish church, England. A charming stash of the everyday playthings of 16th or 17th century children, the hoard throws a rare spotlight on the material culture of children in the archaeolog ical record. Staff at Harborough Museum dated the collection to the late Tudor and early Stuart era (1570-1630 ). The hoard was comprised of street toys, specifical ly 117 objects known as tipcats, 89 spinning tops, 13 sap whistles, 6 knucklebon es, 7 balls, 5 whip handles, 2 possible teetotums (a kind of spinning top) and 8 wooden cylinder objects that were also thought to be toys.

Balls have been around for a very long time. Ancient Roman and Egyptian children played with balls of leather and of glazed clay, patterned with the still-traditional vertical stripe we see today on beach balls. Balls were common throughout the medieval period, and all over Europe. My aim in this paper is to present what information I have discovered about balls and their history in the medieval context. There are commercial and social notes dealing with both the makers and the users of balls, and descriptions of extant pieces, some more fragmentary than others. Quite a few examples survive from various archaeological sites across Europe, and their construction is remarkably uniform.

The tennis ball has a leather covering and is densely packed with moss; it was presumably used in real tennis. The bowls ball is a lathe-turn ed object with flattened sides; it is similar to one found at Coppergate , York, in a context of c. 1300.

How to make a ball of wool felt.

A 4-panel juggling ball pattern piece.

The original proposal for the research and publicatio n of the large assemblage of leather artefacts and leatherwor king evidence from four sites in Anglo-Scan dinavian and medieval York specified that the work be undertaken in two distinct stages:


Stage 1: completion of the archive and preparatio n of a detailed publicatio n synopsis.


Stage 2: analysis, research and publicatio n.

The initial data gathering and quantifica tion has been successful ly completed and this document represents the detailed publicatio n synopsis, work programme and timetable necessary for the completion of stage 2.

Links to extant pieces of pre-17th century gaming equipment, as well as depictions of people playing games.

Medieval illustrati ons of ball games, with informatio n about an reproducin g a ball from an archaeolog ical example.

Playthings in the Middle Ages, divided up by materials -- knucklebon es, wood, leather/te xtile, ceramic, metal, etc. Includes photos of extant examples, and depictions of playthings in use.

Describes a 13th century ball from medieval Hull, England, and the game it was used for, called half-bowl.

There is plenty of information about the toys used by medieval children in general, and any of these items would probably look much nicer than the plastic monstrosities. However, we can still go one better - actual Viking toys do exist, and it may surprise you to learn just how simple they are to reproduce. Absolute purists may find the range a little limited, but with some extrapolation, creating a hoard of Norse toys is completely possible. There are toys for boys and girls, active games and imaginative ones, and no great difficulty in suiting the needs of different age-groups.